From radio plays written in the 1940s to modern TV shows on BBC and CBS, the adventures of Sherlock Holmes have been reimagined across numerous media since he was first introduced in 1887 by writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Legions of fans belonging to the Baker Street Irregulars gather to dive into the Sherlockian cannon or ponder the latest adaptations. Minnesota boasts a particularly active society of Irregulars known as the Norwegian Explorers. The University of Minnesota also has the world’s largest collection of Sherlockian memorabilia. The accessibility to original artifacts invites fans like the Norwegian Explorers to engage actively with the Sherlockian cannon, to consume and produce their own papers, fan-fiction, or lectures, and to engage in “The Game.”
Photo credit: Illustration of "Mrs. Stapleton" from The Hound of the Baskervilles, courtesy of The Sherlock Holmes Collection at the Andersen Library, University of Minnesota